Category: General News

January 18th is going to be amazing. Sites are striking in all different ways, but they are united by this: do the biggest thing you possibly can, and drive contacts to Congress. Put this on your site or automate it by putting this JS into your header, which will start the blackout at 8AM EST and end at 8PM EST.

Our End of the ‘Net will be participating in this strike. At 8 AM EST Wednesday, until 8 PM EST Wednesday evening, this site will be unavailable to you — just like it would be if SOPA were to ever become law.

On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill – PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House – to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow Reddit’s lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day.

All of the major websites will be participating in this blackout, or at least posting some sort of announcement in protest. Even Google has decided to take some action for tomorrow.

I hold no grudge against Camille Spink, but I detest the drunken driver who killed my Niece Sheena Blair, Her friend Martin Tony Ramirez, and at least temporarily disabled her boyfriend Luis Reyna, and Friend Marco Ortiz. All of these young people were just hitting their stride as responsible adults. Something has to be done to stem the tide of vehicular homicide due to drunken driving in this country. As the court has seen from the flood of letters from concerned citizens this opinion is shared by many.

The impact on our family has been devastating. Since I got the five am phone call from my brother on the early morning after the crash, I have seen him and his wife suffering immensely. The lack of sleep, personal distress, and the inability to hold back tears has rendered their lives dormant. Neither of them has been able to return to their normal routines including work, which has pretty much ruined them financially. They have been able to stay in their home only with the help of family, but who knows how long that will last. The loss of Sheena also impacts her disabled sister Amy. Deprived of her love and support Amy is having a very difficult time with the loss of her sister.

The rest of us have seen our last hope for continuing our father’s Native American blood line put to an abrupt end. Sheena was the last possible carrier of his blood, and now she is gone.

Sheena was going to graduate from college in the spring with a degree in Criminal Justice. Her intent was to work with young people on the verge of serious trouble. She would have been the second person in our family to graduate from college. That dream now has ended.

This isn’t the first experience for our family with drunken driver vehicular homicide. My wife’s brother Donovan Griswold was on his way home in the spring of 1978 when he had the misfortune to have a flat tire on Highway 18 near Maple Valley. Before he could get the tire changed, a drunk slammed into the back of his car, killing him instantly. The drunk, a repeat offender, was never brought to justice. By hiring a clever defense attorney, he was able to avoid even any jail time.

When will this madness end? When will we make the punishment fit the crime? We have two dead and two severely injured out of this incident, and yet the Prosecutor is asking for the minimum on the sentencing range. How can this be? What has the defendant done to deserve special consideration? She has been free on her own recognizance since a few hours after the incident. She has made no attempt to apologize for her actions. She has made no offer of restitution to any of the killed or injured. She was not even taken into custody when she plead guilty to two counts of vehicular homicide and two counts of vehicular assault. She was not even asked to post bond. Is once again a clever Defense attorney working his magic? When will we put an end to this cottage industry of DWI? Awarding Defense attorneys tens of thousands of dollars to keep their clients out of jail doesn’t seem to be working. What were the maximum ranges even set for? Do you have to kill three, four, five at once?

Drunken driving is the nation’s most frequently committed violent crime. A person is injured by a drunken driver every two minutes in this country, someone is killed by a drunken driver every thirty minutes, and yet many of the perpetrators walk free. Just as the defendant has for nearly one year.

Your Honor you have the opportunity here to make a statement. I think we all know that with overcrowding in the prisons the defendant will probably never serve the actual sentence you pronounce. You have her admission that she, while drunk and driving killed two people, that she, while drunk and driving assaulted two people. She had a blood alcohol content of .21 %. That is close to three times the legal limit. According to documents available on effects of different levels of blood alcohol, a person with a blood alcohol in excess of .20% would most likely be in a stupor if still conscious at all. She also admittedly had smoked Marijuana earlier in the day. To be able to navigate a car to and down an off ramp from Broadway, 200 yards down the wrong way onto the onramp for southbound I-5 and over three lanes of traffic to eventually crash into Sheena’s car, and still be functional to answer her cell phone and converse with officers at the scene she must have built up a tolerance to this amount of alcohol and drugs. This was not her first time driving drunk!

Your Honor don’t look at Camille Spink When you pass judgment, look at the drunken driver who decided to get behind the wheel and killed two people and maimed two people. Please send a message to those who choose to drink and drive! Make them think twice before getting behind that wheel.

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In March of 1980 Carol and I had a son born three months premature who lived 6 days and passed away. Then we had a miscarriage. So when Sheena was born in 1985, I was a pretty nervous parent. The nurse handed me a bundle of screaming kid and as Sheena gazed into my eyes, she stopped crying. I knew at that minute that she was a Daddy’s girl. As she grew, she became my little pal. I took her fishing and to the park. She never called me Daddy, she always called me MY Daddy.

I helped her with her spelling words. We went to her school concerts and functions. It became apparent that she had NO sense of prejudice; she liked people who were nice and could not be bothered with mean people or unfairness. She always gravitated toward those who were picked on or shunned. Once in middle school, we got a call stating that she had skipped a class. It turned out that one of her friends who was different from the other kids had talked about killing herself. She and Sheena spent an hour behind a portable talking and crying together and Sheena talked her out of it. That girl came to Sheena’s service and told us how much that meant to her.

She was committed to serving those whose voice is rarely heard. She wanted to help juvenile offenders change their direction so they wouldn’t die in the streets or spend their lives in prison. While she was working at Echo Glenn, a juvenile prison, she told me of a 15 year old, tough gang kid. She challenged him to a game of jail spades. She told him to keep score. He refused. Finally she asked him if he could write. He said he didn’t know how. She said that IF she won he had to learn to write his name. If HE won, she would not bother him about school anymore. She DID win and over the next few days worked with him and he was so proud of what he learned, he wrote his name on everything he owned. She was a few months away from her bachelor degree in Law and Justice from Central Wash. U. We’ll never know how many at-risk youths she could have helped.

Sheena and I had a bond unlike any I have ever known. We could glance at each other and know exactly what the other was thinking. We could make each other laugh; we could make each others’ troubles bearable. She was the apple of my eye; she was my daddy’s girl.

When my father died in 1991, I felt like a rowboat cut adrift. But I always felt like I was drifting toward the sun. When Sheena was killed, that sun went out, and now I drift in the darkness. Sheena has a little sister who was born three months premature but survived. Amy has developmental disabilities. I always had the peace of mind knowing that when I die, Amy would have her big sister to watch over her. THAT died on February 26th.

I struggle through my days, sometimes robotically. It can be a song on the radio, watching a man playing with his grandchildren or seeing a little red car drive down my street and thinking “Sheena’s home” and then start sobbing when the reality hits….again.

I feel that imposing a minimum sentence in this case would dishonor Sheena’s memory, and her legacy. The demeanor of the defendant at the scene of this crime was troubling. According to police reports, she was staggering and giggling as one young man lay dead on the sidewalk and Sheena was trapped in the wreckage of her car. There was NO sign of contrition or remorse. She has been free on personal recognizance since the night this crime occurred, as we went through Amy’s prom, her graduation, Mother’s day, Father’s day and my birthday. Even after pleading guilty to four felonies, she remained free. While we endured Thanksgiving, what WOULD have been Sheena’s 25th birthday, Christmas and the beginning of a New Year all without Sheena.

Sheena was doing a favor for a friend the night she was killed. She and her friends were not drunk, not high on drugs, they weren’t out looking for trouble or going to a bar, She was on her way home. She promised to be home at 11:00 and she would have were it not for the actions of the defendant. She had every right to be where she was, doing what she was doing. The defendant was drunk, she was high on marijuana and driving the wrong way on Broadway going to a bar. For that irresponsibility and reckless disregard for the safety of others, my girl was killed. The punishment must fit the crime.

We are not mean-spirited or vindictive people. We do not seek vengeance. BUT we DO seek justice. Many things were crushed that…..night at the hands of the defendant, among those was my heart. IF Sheena’s spirit is here in this room today, and I believe that she IS, I would say to her: We think of you constantly, we miss you desperately and we love you eternally.

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We talk with Jeff about the Obama address and the incredible concessions he got from BP

Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson talks about what exactly the Auditors office IS and other topics like the New electronic candidate filing, a tax issue that could close soon depending on what the Leg in DC does and Animal Control. We look forward to future discussions with Julie on other important issues.

Richard Perez, executive producer of a documentary series In Their Boots. A series just picked up by PBS to begin airing on KCTS channel nine on July 2nd. This important series documents the plight of today’s military and the stresses placed on our soldiers. DON’T miss it

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A Fox news station in turmoil. Imagine that. Greasy oil execs lie, point fingers and make fools of themselves. Our returning Vets are in BIG trouble and we owe it to them to DO something about it. But we’re not sure what…………

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This was a good one. Our man on the floor of the HOUSE joins us and talks about the latest in Olympia. A guy named Vivian, YES VIVIAN from the I-1068 campaign talks about how and why legalization of marijuana should be done in Washington. Makes sense. We got a surprise call from a gentleman named Brian. The surprise is that he is a self-identified conservative. AND he agrees that 1068 is a good idea. Good for you Brian, thanks for listening.

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This week we talk about how proud we are of the voters and our auditor.We also talk about gangs and Pam Roach. To top it off we invited Washington State Patrol Trooper Brandy Kessler to discuss road rage and how to avoid it.

I THINK this is a first on KLAY. Our man on the floor of the House Steve Kirby (D-29) actually cast TWO votes LIVE on the air. Steve has been doing this segment of Equal Time during the sessions for a couple years now, and it’s always very interesting to get a live perspective from Olympia from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. BUT this is the first time I can remember him actually taking a vote while on the phone to us. Kinda like C-Span except without the TV set. Thanks Steve, we’re looking forward to hearing from you next week.